Book contents
- Action Ascription in Interaction
- Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics
- Action Ascription in Interaction
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Constituents of Action Ascription
- Part II Practices of Action Ascription
- 6 Intention Ascriptions as a Means to Coordinate Own Actions with Others’ Actions
- 7 Strategy Ascriptions in Public Mediation Talks
- 8 Action Ascription and Deonticity in Everyday Advice-Giving Sequences
- 9 “How about Eggs?”
- 10 Action Ascription and Action Assessment
- 11 Actions and Identities in Emergency Calls
- Part III Revisiting Action Ascription
- Book part
- Index
- References
8 - Action Ascription and Deonticity in Everyday Advice-Giving Sequences
from Part II - Practices of Action Ascription
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2022
Book contents
- Action Ascription in Interaction
- Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics
- Action Ascription in Interaction
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Constituents of Action Ascription
- Part II Practices of Action Ascription
- 6 Intention Ascriptions as a Means to Coordinate Own Actions with Others’ Actions
- 7 Strategy Ascriptions in Public Mediation Talks
- 8 Action Ascription and Deonticity in Everyday Advice-Giving Sequences
- 9 “How about Eggs?”
- 10 Action Ascription and Action Assessment
- 11 Actions and Identities in Emergency Calls
- Part III Revisiting Action Ascription
- Book part
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter addresses action ascription in everyday advice-giving sequences, with a focus on those sequences in which advice has not been solicited as such. We argue that for action ascription in both second and third positions, the design (‘composition’) and the sequential location (‘position’) of the prior turn are crucial. Advice-giving typically emerges in the environment of a complaint or troubles-telling; in second position, the recipient must then decide whether or not it warrants advice. In third position, the recipient of a piece of advice must decide how exactly it was meant: as a binding prescription or injunction, or as a mild suggestion for a possible way forward? This is relevant for the advice-recipient in deciding how to deal with the advice: whether to accept or reject/resist it, or to join the other in brainstorming about how to remedy the situation. Relatively strong deontic formats position advice-givers as experts who know best what their interlocutor ‘needs’, and tend to be resisted; weaker formats call on the recipient not so much to accept or reject the advice given as to acknowledge or agree that the action in question would be a possible course of action with beneficial effects.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Action Ascription in Interaction , pp. 183 - 207Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Butler, C. W., Potter, J., Danby, S., Emmison, M. & Hepburn, A. (2010). Advice-implicative interrogatives: Building “client-centered” support in a children’s helpline. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(3), 265–87.Google Scholar
Clayman, S. E. & Heritage, J. (2014). Benefactors and beneficiaries: Benefactive status and stance in the management of offers and requests. In Drew, P. & Couper-Kuhlen, E., eds., Requesting in Social Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 55–86.Google Scholar
Clift, R. (2001). Meaning in interaction: The case of “actually.” Language, 77(2), 245–91.Google Scholar
Craven, A. & Potter, J. (2010). Directives: Entitlement and contingency in action. Discourse Studies, 12(4), 419–42.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2012). Exploring affiliation in the reception of conversational complaint stories. In Peräkylä, A. & Sorjonen, M.-L., eds., Emotion in Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 113–46.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2014). What does grammar tell us about action? Pragmatics, 24(3), 623–47.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, E. & Thompson, S. A. (2021). Ratschläge in der Alltagskommunikation: Zur Verwendung einer sedimentierten Form im Englischen (‘Advice in everyday talk: On the use of a sedimented form in English’). In Weidner, B., Imo, W., König, K. & Wegner, L., eds., Verfestigungen in der Interaktion – Konstruktionen, sequenzielle Muster, kommunikative Gattungen. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 299–322.Google Scholar
Curl, T. & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41, 129–53.Google Scholar
Drew, P. (1998). Complaints about transgressions and misconduct. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31(3–4), 295–325.Google Scholar
Emmison, M., Butler, C. W. & Danby, S. (2011). Script proposals: a device for empowering clients in counselling. Discourse Studies, 13(1), 3–26.Google Scholar
Floyd, S., Rossi, G., & Enfield, N.J., eds. (2020). Getting Others to Do Things: A Pragmatic Typology of Recruitments. Berlin: Language Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Barbara A. (2007). Principles shaping grammatical practices: an exploration. Discourse Studies, 9: 299–318.Google Scholar
Heinemann, T. & Traverso, V. (2009). Complaining in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(12), 2381–4.Google Scholar
Hepburn, A. & Potter, J. (2011). Designing the recipient: Some practices that manage advice resistance in institutional settings. Social Psychology Quarterly, 74, 216–41.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (2011). Territories of knowledge, territories of experience: Empathic moments in interaction. In Stivers, T., Mondada, L. & Steensig, J., eds., The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 159–83.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (2012a). Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 1–29.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (2012b). The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heritage, J. & Lindström, A. (1998). Motherhood, medicine, and morality: Scenes from a medical encounter. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31(3–4), 397–438.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. & Lindström, A. (2012). Advice giving – terminable and interminable: The case of British health visitors. In Limberg, H. & Locher, M. A., eds., Advice in Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 169–94.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. & Sefi, S. (1992). Dilemmas of advice: Aspects of the delivery and reception of advice in interactions between health visitors and first time mothers. In Drew, P. & Heritage, J., eds., Talk at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 359–419.Google Scholar
Hudson, T. (1990). The discourse of advice giving in English: “I wouldn’t feed until spring no matter what you do.” Language & Communication, 10(4), 285–97.Google Scholar
Hutchby, I. (1995). Aspects of recipient design in expert advice-giving on call-in radio. Discourse Processes, 9(2), 19–238.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1988). On the sequential organization of troubles-talk in ordinary conversation. Social Problems, 35(4), 418–41.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. & Lee, J. R. E. (1981). The rejection of advice: Managing the problematic convergence of a “troubles-telling” and a “service encounter.” Journal of Pragmatics, 5, 399–421.Google Scholar
Kendrick, K. & Drew, P. (2016). Recruitment: Offers, requests, and the organization of assistance in interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49(1), 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinnell, A. M. K. & Maynard, D. W. (1996). The delivery and receipt of safer sex advice in pre-test counseling sessions for HIV and AIDS. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35, 405–37.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2013). Action formation and ascription. In Sidnell, J. & Stivers, T., eds., Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 103–30.Google Scholar
Mori, J. (2006). The workings of the Japanese token hee in informing sequences: An analysis of sequential context, turn shape, and prosody. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1175–205.Google Scholar
Ogden, R. (2013). Clicks and percussives in English conversation. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43, 299–320.Google Scholar
Pilnick, A. (2001). The interactional organization of pharmacist consultations in a hospital setting: A putative structure. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(12), 1927–45.Google Scholar
Pilnick, A. (2003). “Patient counselling” by pharmacists: Four approaches to the delivery of counselling sequences and their interactional reception. Social Science & Medicine, 56(4), 835–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pudlinski, C. (2002). Accepting and rejecting advice as competent peers: Caller dilemmas on a warm line. Discourse Studies, 4(4), 481–500.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1993). Reflections on quantification in the study of conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26, 99–128.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1997). Practices and actions: Boundary cases of other-initiated repair. Discourse Processes, 23(3), 499–545.Google Scholar
Selting, M. (2012). Complaint stories and subsequent complaint stories with affect displays. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 387–415.Google Scholar
Shaw, C. & Hepburn, A. (2013). Managing the moral implications of advice in informal interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 46(4), 344–62.Google Scholar
Shaw, C., Potter, J. & Hepburn, A. (2015). Advice-implicative actions: Using interrogatives and assessments to deliver advice in mundane conversation. Discourse Studies, 17(3), 317–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidnell, J. & Enfield, N. J. (2014). The ontology of action, in interaction. In Enfield, N. J., Kockelman, P. & Sidnell, J., eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 423–46.Google Scholar
Silverman, D. (1997). Discourses of Counseling: HIV Counseling as Social Interaction. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Sorjonen, M.-L., Raevaara, L. & Couper-Kuhlen, E., eds. (2017). Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Stevanovic, M. & Peräkylä, A. (2012). Deontic authority in interaction: The right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(3), 297–321.Google Scholar
Stivers, T., Heritage, J., Barnes, R. K. et al. (2018). Treatment recommendations as actions. Health Communication, 33(11), 1335–44.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. A. & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2020). English why don’t you X as a formulaic expression. In Ono, T. & Laury, R., eds., Fixed Expressions: Building Language Structure and Action. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 99–132.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. A., Fox, B. & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2015). Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vatanen, A. (2018). Responding in early overlap: Recognitional onsets in assertion sequence. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(2), 107–26.Google Scholar
Vehviläinen, S. (2001). Evaluative advice in educational counselling: The use of disagreement in the “stepwise entry” to advice. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34(3), 371–98.Google Scholar
Waring, H. Z. (2005). Peer tutoring in a graduate writing center: Identity, expertise, and advice resisting. Applied Linguistics, 26(2), 141–68.Google Scholar
Waring, H. Z. (2007). The multi-functionality of accounts in advice giving. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(3), 367–91.Google Scholar
Waring, H. Z. (2012). The advising sequence and its preference structures in graduate peer tutoring in an American university. In Limberg, H. & Locher, M. A., eds., Advice in Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 87–118.Google Scholar
- 9
- Cited by